The docketing engine

Patent docketing software that computes, with provenance.

OttoFlow™ traces every deadline to the document, the rule, and the formula that created it — and to the person who verified it. Docketing becomes a compiled discipline, not a heroic one.

Schedule a Demo See the Pipeline

OttoFlow Firm Docket in Analyze view with scope and role filters, upcoming docket actions and an obligation's workflow checklist in the detail panel

⤢ Enlarge

1,853

Docketing procedures

Jurisdictional rule sets

1,672

Unique docketing action codes

Procedure families

Rule library

The rule library already knows the world’s patent offices.

OttoFlow ships with 1,853 docketing procedures across 63 jurisdictional rule sets, organized into 27 procedure families. Coverage runs from utility and design patents through EP, PCT, and national phase, provisionals, utility models, and the full trademark lifecycle.

Renewals tracked for life

Annuity and renewal deadlines for patents and trademarks are computed across the whole life of every matter, filing to expiry — even when renewals aren’t the firm’s responsibility. Built in from Black Hills Renewals.

IP Renewals →

Jurisdiction

Rules

ALLF multi-country

403

European Patent Office

331

China

166

EU Trademark (EM)

165

Brazil

Korea

Singapore

Germany / Mexico

Canada

Rule counts by jurisdiction in the shipped library, plus about 1,250 U.S. utility rules resolved through the US and ALLF layers.

The rule model

Procedure, action, deadline.

A PTO document or event code triggers a procedure, which launches one or more actions, each carrying its due-date formulas. Rules exist in three tiers — system, firm, and client — so each corporate client’s conventions are first-class configuration.

Four action modes

Fixed dates with their own or dual formulas; multi-country actions that resolve by the matter’s country; no-date actions; and deferred requirements that compute only when a later file-wrapper document appears.

Seven trigger kinds

PTO document and event codes, procedure steps, direct action triggers, matter field changes with cascade guards, deferred requirements, API launches, and manual entry.

Dates that match how attorneys think

Six date types, hard statutory versus soft target flags, extension ladders with fee rungs, and absolute bar dates that never move.

Provenance on every date

Each obligation records its source — calculated, country law, user supplied, or AI-extracted — with the full source-document context behind it.

Date arithmetic an examiner would sign off on

End-of-month clamping, dual deadlines, maintained holiday calendars, and business-day rollover per jurisdiction, with nominal and rolled dates on record.

Recalculation without surprises

Open deadlines recompute only through explicit, logged paths. Dates never silently drift — they change because something happened, and the record says what.

Autodocketing

Every inbound document becomes a verified docket obligation.

API-originated launches are mirrored into the same Inbox queue, so nothing bypasses review.

OttoFlow PTO Data tab listing file-wrapper documents and transactions pulled from Otto HUB, with mail-room date, document code and docketing status for each document

⤢ Enlarge

The PTO Data tab: file-wrapper documents and transactions pulled from Otto HUB™, with the mail-room date, document code, and docketing status of every document.

Ingest

PTO mail, file wrappers, Otto HUB™ feeds, email, and agent uploads become correspondence items.

Match

Application-number and document-code matching to matter and procedure, with duplicate detection.

Run

Scope resolution — system, firm, client — plus launch conditions and operation type.

Resolve

Due dates from country law and holiday calendars, with provenance attached.

Analyze

Document AI reads the source and extracts office-action tags: §101/102/103/112, restriction, allowance.

Commit

Human queue or auto mode, set per firm and per procedure; audit events written.

Verify

Rule checks and AI checks, then human verify or reject — with bulk re-evaluate.

Three tiers of rules, one click to customize

The firm customizes the shipped library once. A corporate client’s own conventions layer on top with a single Customize for Client action — and survive every library update.

Verification as a first-class stage

A Docket Verification queue separates Pending, Rule-Flagged, AI-Sourced, Verified, and Rejected items. Each shows which formula fired, from which document, on which base date — so verifying is reading, not re-deriving.

A test harness for the docketing department

Import a ZIP of real correspondence, run a USPTO refresh against it, and diff the resulting docket against expectation — so a rule change is regression-tested against last quarter’s mail before it’s published.

“Why is this due on the 14th?” The system answers in one click — with the document, the rule, the formula, and the name of the person who verified it.

Running a large docket

Forty attorneys, a thousand obligations. One triage problem.

OttoFlow gives every role its own lens on the same docket, and makes the common actions one keystroke.

Firm Docket

Analyze and Basic list views, a month-grid calendar, saved views, and filters by scope, client, date type, hard deadlines, and office-action grounds — with Complete, NAR, and bulk status changes from the keyboard, and undo.

My Workflow & Docket Workbench

A personal obligation queue for every attorney and paralegal, with an ICS feed for Outlook or Google, reminder policies, a morning digest, and Complete or NAR from the phone.

Inbox: the docketing assembly line

Mail packets move through a fixed sequence — docketing, saving, internal report, client report, completed — so every piece of correspondence has a visible status.

Work Delegation

Reassign one item, a client’s whole docket, or everything a departing paralegal holds in one bulk step. Every hand-off records who moved what, to whom, when, and why.